COLUMN: Gunter – Time for UN to go

UN is ripe, ready for history’s trash

by Lorne Gunter

If ever there was an institution that deserved to be called feckless and useless, it is the United Nations.

And that is never more evident than during the week each fall in which the General Assembly begins its annual session. Then an endless stream of dictators, tyrants, thugs, cronies and human-rights abusers lines up at the UN podium in New York to denounce Western civilization and especially the United States and Israel.

This year is no exception.

To gauge just how ineffective the UN is, check out how it is handling (or not) Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Year after year, Ahmadinejad makes the trek to Manhattan so he can call for the eradication of Israel. In the past, he has also used his time at the UN to deny the Holocaust, declare capitalism dead, insist there were no gays or lesbians in Iran and accuse “Zionists” (Jews) of dominating politics, economies and culture through “complicated networks” that amount to a “a new form of slavery.”

In 2007, the Iranian president hinted that he was prepared to unleash “hundreds of suicide bombers a day” against the U.S. and other western nations.

And many times, at the UN and elsewhere, he has promised to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth.

So what did the big brains at the UN do this year? They scheduled Ahmadinejad’s annual anti-Semitic rant for Wednesday — Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in the Jewish calendar.

Oh, don’t worry, they insisted. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — an inept leader even by the UN’s appallingly low standards — was going to talk with Ahmadinejad and ask him nicely not to crank up the inflammatory rhetoric.

When the Iranian president — who many suspect of having stolen his re-election in 2009 — arrived in New York on Sunday, Ban summoned him to his UN office and cautioned him against using provocative language in his address to the General Assembly.

So what did Ahmadinejad do?

Naturally, he instantly found a gaggle of reporters and told them Israel “has no roots in the region.” Unlike Iran, which has been around for 3,000 years, Ahmadinejad insisted Israel has only existed “for 60 or 70 years.”

Of course, this ignores the fact that Jews just recently celebrated the beginning of year 5773 since their nation was founded by Abraham in the very region in which Ahmadinejad claims they are newcoming interlopers.

The next day (Monday), the Iranian leader attended a UN summit on the rule of law (as though he or the UN would know anything worthwhile on the subject). There he accused Israel of being a “fake regime” that he promised “will be eliminated.”

Will Ahmadinejad’s flouting of Secretary-General Ban’s request for civility cause the UN to revoke his invitation to speak before the General Assembly on Wednesday ?

Don’t be daft. This is the UN we’re talking about. There won’t even be a mild rebuke.

Mauritania, the last nation on earth to ban slavery (1981) — where an estimated 800,000 souls are still treated as chattel — has a place on the UN’s human rights council. Sudan, whose leader is under international indictment for genocide, just missed out on being elected to a seat.

Iran, where adulterous women are stoned to death, and Saudi Arabia, which has one of the worst women’s rights records in the world, have both been members of the UN’s council on the status of women.

This week and throughout the year, Western nations and culture will be denounced over and over again at the UN while real crimes against humanity elsewhere will be tiptoed around.

I couldn’t agree more Lorne – only because I beleve the UN cannot be reformed to reflect a more ethical and reasoning body from within. There is just too much influence from fanatical despotic regimes. There is no longer any accommodation for wesyern democratic and social values in this body. As well, it attempts to insert itself as an unelected 4th level of government in North American nations – presuming to override the authority of elected domestic governing bodies by signing social policy treaties with unelected NGOs who then act as policy authorities domestically – this is positively subversive!

The sooner the free nations pull out of this global despotic farce the better – and take our aid money with us.

Totally agree. As well let’s not forget we are a Sovereign Nation and I have had it up to my Neck on having the UN try and grab more power over nations meanwhile no one their has been elected to represent me in that organization. I don’t want to live by one UN policy in which I have no say with my vote!

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Brian Lilley is the host of Byline on Sun News Network and a senior correspondent for Sun Media's Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa. His weekly column is published in more than 30 daily newspapers across Canada and he appears on several leading talk radio stations.